Tag Archives: college

Contemporary Legend – Miami University

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Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 26
Occupation: Administrative Assistant
Residence: Long Beach, California
Performance Date: February 24, 2009
Primary Language: English

(This story takes place in the dorms of Miami University) A loud commotion I heard and it turns out that there is an argument in a dorm. To help keep the peace the Resident Advisor (RA) goes into see what is happening. The RA sees two people having a confrontation and jumps in to break up the scuffle. Upon being separated, one of the individuals involved pulls out a handgun. He turns and points the handgun the RA and shoots him point blank in the chest. As he is falling the RA wipes his bloody hand on the wall leaving a smeared handprint. A short while later people that worked for the school tried to clean the bloody handprint off of the wall. No matter what they tried they could not get the handprint off of the wall. They eventually gave up trying to clean the handprint off and decided instead to paint over it.  According to the legend if you touch the bloody hand print the ghost of the RA will show up.

Elizabeth told me that the story has to have some truth to it because she claims to have actually seen the bloody hand print in person. She admits that it is possible that someone painted the handprint there in order to add strength to the story. She says she never touched the handprint. The first time she heard the story was when she was a freshman living in the dorms at Miami University. She was told the story by a member of her rugby team. The school takes the matter so seriously that they do not allow anyone to live in the room that the incident supposedly took place. Elizabeth told me that she thinks the story is a warning to all Reside Advisors to not try to be heroes and choose their fights more wisely.

I think the story serves to show that there is no telling what could possibly happen in any given situation, especially those in college. What may seem on the surface to be a typical fight might in fact be mortal combat. There are dangerous people everywhere and college is no exception. While this can serve as a warning to RAs it also highlights the danger that can accompany even everyday situations.

Prank – American

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Nationality: African American
Age: 22
Occupation: Criminal Justice Student
Residence: Cincinnati, Ohio
Performance Date: March 7, 2009
Primary Language: English

When you are drinking you should never fall asleep with your shoes on. If you do then you are fair game for anything.

Corey told me that this tradition is common all across the campus of University of Findlay. Anytime there are parties and people have a little too much to drink and fall asleep with their shoes on they get messed with. He tells me that nothing is off-limits when it comes to dishing out a punishment to the offender. A common punishment is drawing on the person’s face with a magic marker. Usually this is done with an erasable marker but permanent markers are often used. Another common punishment is to spray shaving cream all over the person’s body. If the person is fully clothed when they fall asleep they may be stripped down to their underwear. Another, more interesting, punishment involves multiple individuals who have fallen asleep in shoes. These individuals are often positioned in compromising positions. All of these pranks can involve photography as a means of recording whatever sort of punishment gets dished out.

One of the more extreme examples Corey told me of involved a guy who had drank too much and passed out underneath a table with his shoes on. A partygoer happened to have a taser in her possession and was more than happy to lend it to one of Corey’s friends who proceeded to tase the sleeping individual in the leg multiple times. The offender was so intoxicated that he never actually woke up. He only moved his leg a little each time he was tased, other than that he remained sleeping and motionless. The incident was filmed and shown to the individual the next day. He was angry at first but upon learning that he neglected to remove his shoes he became more understanding and even appeared to be more angry at himself than the guy that tased him in the leg.

Corey says that this practice is continued in order to teach people not to drink more than they can responsibly handle. If someone plans on going to sleep they will have the wherewithal to remove their shoes first to avoid being disturbed. If, on the other hand, that person is too drunk to function and simply passes out anything can happen. Getting screwed with, while sleeping with shoes on, usually causes a person to drink more responsibly next time. Corey told me the first time he heard of this rule was at the very first college party he ever went to. The first time he witnessed someone getting messed with while sleeping with shoes was the very same night. The offender in this instance was given a shaving cream beard, mustache, and eyebrows. I also believe it is a way of warning college students against drinking too heavily. It is a way for them to experience a direct consequence of heavy drinking that is not nearly as severe as other possible consequences that can arise from drinking too heavily. This is a way to prevent that.